Gender and Sexuality (Fall 2021) Gender and Sexu

Gender and Sexuality (Fall 2021)
Gender and
Sexuality
Angela Barian
Todd Schoepflin, Niagara University
Jessica Brown, Houston Community
College
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Gender and Sexuality
A N G E L A B A R I A N

T O D D S C H O E P F L I N , N I A G A R A U N I V E R S
I T Y
J E S S I C A B R O W N , H O U S T O N C O M M U N I T
Y C O L L E G E
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF GENDER
Nature, nurture, neither?
Social construction of gender
Intersectional perspectives of gender
INEQUALITIES AND PROGRESS
Feminism
Institutional inequality
Gender and violence
SEXUALITIES
The creation of sexuality
Intersectional sexualities
The social control of sexuality

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INTRODUCTION
In 2013, retired Army veteran Jamie Shupe changed their legal
identity from male to
female (Shupe's preferred pronouns are their and they).
Assigned male at birth, Shupe
remembers their mother slapping them as a child for being “a
sissy.”1 Shupe was a married
father when they decided they’d had enough: “I was in a deep,
dark depression because I
had boxed myself into this male identity that I couldn't stand
anymore.”2 Shupe started taking
hormones and for a while lived as a transgender woman.
Transgender refers to people whose
gender identity and expression are different from what they
were assigned at birth.3 But they
didn’t feel “fully female” either.4 So in 2016, Jamie Shupe
petitioned to be the first person in the
history of the United States to be legally recognized as non-
binary (that is, not exclusively

masculine or feminine). They won. Following that decision,
Shupe’s home state of Oregon
became the first state to officially offer gender-neutral driver’s
licenses. As of July 2017,
residents can have an “X” in the gender box on their state-
issued ID.5 In court, Shupe said, “I
can’t divorce my male side with my female side. And you’re
just going to have to
acknowledge that sex and gender is a spectrum, not two poles.”6
While societies have always seen gender expressions that move
beyond the male-
female binary, a recent Time article notes that this gender
flexibility has moved from being
marginalized to being more widely accepted.7 A survey from
the Gay & Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation (GLAAD) reports that “20% of millennials
identify as something other than
strictly straight and cisgender (someone whose gender matches
the sex they were assigned at
birth).”8 This is compared to just 7% of Baby Boomers, the
generation born between 1946 and
1964. Social understandings of gender and sexuality continue to
evolve in ways that have
profound effects on our daily lives.

You could make a case that gender is the primary way people
organize the social
world. Before birth, parents prepare nurseries in pink or blue
and use social media for
elaborate reveals of whether the baby will be a boy or a girl.
Elementary school teachers use
gender to line students up and pit them against each other in
competitions. Kids are teased
by each other and even adults with a song that contains a
gender-based script about
marriage, family, and sexual orientation: “Rob and Mary sitting
in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First
comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby
carriage.” Fast-forward to high
school, where prom kings and queens are crowned; then to a
baby shower, a space usually
reserved for women, although occasionally a couple allows men
and women to attend in a
“Jack and Jill” format. Gender matters before the cradle and all
the way to the grave.
In this chapter, we have two goals. First, we provide you with a
sociological lens on
gender and sexuality. We consider how, despite being firmly
rooted in minds and bodies,

gender and sexuality are also profoundly social. Second, we
explore how gender and
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sexuality intersect with other social relations to create a
multitude of experiences and unequal
interactions and institutions.
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF GENDER
social constructions of both
gender and sex?
Nature, nurture, neither?
In 2009, runner Caster Semenya won a gold
medal in the women’s 800-meter race at the
World Championships. Semenya smashed the

previous African record and improved her own
personal best by eight seconds in eight months, an
almost unheard-of feat.9 But there were whispers:
Semenya’s time was too fast. And just look at her,
one of the other athletes said. The track & field
governing body expressed suspicion about
whether she qualified to run with women. Later
that year, Caster Semenya went through “gender
verification testing.”10 The purpose of the testing,
said officials, was to determine if Semenya is
“really” a woman. For almost a year, she was
unable to compete while tests were administered
and analyzed. While the results of the so-called
gender test were never revealed, Semenya was
cleared to compete with other women. She later won a silver
medal at the 2012 Olympics. But
why was her case so difficult? Why did it take so long for the
committee to affirm that, as she
and her father maintai ned all along, she’s a woman? Let’s

consider some sociological
concepts of gender before returning to Caster Semenya.
We can start with a comment made by a student in one of our
classes: “You are what
your birth certificate says you are.” In the student’s eyes,
you’re either male or female, just as a
birth certificate indicates. End of story. But it’s not so simple.
The certificate tells us a biological
fact. It tells us nothing about society. Sex refers to the different
biological and physiological
Caster Semenya. Source: Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caster_Semenya_Lon
don_2012.jpg#/media/File:Caster_Semenya_London_2012.jpg
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characteristics of males and females, such as reproductive
organs, chromosomes, and
hormones. Gender refers to the socially-constructed
characteristics of women and men – such
as norms, roles, and relationships among and between groups of
women and men.11

You may be familiar with the terms nature and nurture, with
nature referring to
biological influences and nurture referring to social ones. Both
are crucial to understanding sex
and gender, but the sociological perspective focuses on how the
social world impacts our
gender development. In Biology 101, you may spend a lot of
time talking about the role that
genes play in influencing our appearance or our behavior. But in
sociology, we devote much
of our attention to how the social environment shapes every
aspect of us – including its impact
on our genes and how they function.
Think of the phrase “boys will be boys.” The expression
suggests that certain behaviors
are inevitable for boys. But it doesn’t account for how the traits
we attribute to boys are
learned. Through socialization, we learn about gender from
family, peers, teachers, coaches,
and other influential people in our lives. We also learn gender
messages from media;
commercials, TV shows, movies, songs, video games, internet
memes, and magazines all have
something to say about gender. Perhaps you saw the Gillette

commercial calling for a positive
change in masculinity. Entitled “The Best Men Can Be,” it
reminds us that ideas about gender
are always under examination and are subject to change.12
Consider the link between girls and the
color pink. We aren’t born with color
preferences, we learn them. Believe it or not, in
the early 1900s, pink was considered a boy’s
color and blue a girl’s color. It wasn’t until the
1940s that the colors became gender-coded
in the way we know them today.13 We now
take the color scheme for granted because it’s
in the fabric of society. Browse the toy aisles at
Target and Wal-Mart and you’ll see pink
products marketed toward girls. Pink is a
primary Victoria’s Secret color. You can buy a
pink air rifle at Cabela’s. Meanwhile, clothes, bikes, and toys
for boys are awash in blue and
gray. People have choices in what they buy, of course, and
many of us stray from the color

norms, but the notion of “boy colors” and “girl colors” remains
entrenched in American
society.
Let’s think about the Caster Semenya case again. Her situation
reveals a lot about
social expectations regarding “what it means” to be a man or a
woman: what you’re
supposed to look like, how you’re supposed to sound, how
strong you are, how emotional you
are, what your interests are. These are gender norms, or social
definitions of behavior assigned
“Gender reveal” cake. (Source)
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to particular sex categories. While gender norms can and do
change through time, place,
and context, the thing they have in common is that they are
socially-determined and socially-
enforced. Most of us are treated according to how we’re
perceived. And these gender
perceptions are generally assumed to match our biological sex.
Table 1: Frequencies of Sex Variations, by Number of Births14
SEX VARIATION FREQUENCY
Not XX and not XY One in 1,666 births
Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome One in 13,000 births
Gonadal dysgenesis (abnormal growth or development) One in
150,000 births
Vaginal agenesis (lack of development) One in 6,000 births
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia One in 13,000 births
Klinefelter Syndrome One in 1,000 births
Ovotestes One in 83,000 births
Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause) One in 110,000 births
But perceptions can be deceiving. The Intersex Society of North
America notes, “If you

ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so
noticeably atypical in terms of
genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the
number comes out to about 1 in
1500 to 1 in 2000 births.”15 And genitals are only one of many
ways that we determine sex
differences. In Semenya’s case, though her test results weren’t
revealed, there is speculation
that she had higher levels of testosterone, a hormone associated
with muscular size and
strength, aggression, and other traits, than most women. She
remains under scrutiny, and is
impacted by a 2019 ruling requiring female track athletes with
naturally elevated levels of
testosterone to take hormone suppressants to compete in certain
women’s races.16 Do you
know your testosterone level? Most people don’t, and so
wouldn’t know if they have unusually
high or low levels. Below is a table of the frequency of
variations in sexual development. To put
the stats in perspective, consider that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is
estimated to occur in 0.2 to
1.5 infants for every 1,000 live births in certain areas of the
United States;17 about one in 3,500

babies is born with cystic fibrosis;18about one in 1,574 babies
is born with a cleft palate without
a cleft lip;19 and Down Syndrome is estimated to occur in about
one in every 700 births. The
point? Intersex conditions are relatively rare – but not as rare as
we think they are.
For Caster Semenya, social assumptions had severe
consequences – she was unable to
participate in her sport for nearly a year, and, due to the recent
rule change, was banned
from defending her 800-meter title at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics
unless she took testosterone-
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reducing drugs. Refusing to take such drugs, Semenya plans to
focus on long-distance events
for the remainder of her career.20 But there are everyday
expectations for all of us, even if our
identity matches what society assumes about us.
The social construction of gender

As Semenya’s example illustrates, what is considered gender -
appropriate is determined
collectively. In the language of sociology, we say that these
notions are socially constructed.
The social construction of gender refers to how meanings of
gender are created through
social interaction and social norms. Teaching, learning,
performing, and policing gender
behavior in light of expectations of appropriate conduct are also
part of the ongoing process
of social construction. Giving a name to a baby is one way a sex
category becomes a gender
status, and babies and children are then treated according to that
gender status. When
children learn to talk, they refer to themselves by their gender.
This is all part of the social
construction of gender.21
Here’s another example: have you ever heard someone speak
and noticed that the
person raises his or her voice at the end of each sentence,
making everything sound as if it
were a question? Linguists call this high-rising terminal; you
may know it as “uptalk” or
“upspeak.” What about ending sentences with words spoken in a

low, almost croaky tone?
That’s referred to as vocal fry. And if modern linguistic
research is any indication, you probably
associate both vocal fry and uptalking with women, particularly
young women.
These speech patterns have social consequences. People who
use vocal fry are seen
as less trustworthy, less competent, and less educated than those
who don’t, and their
prospects for landing a job can be affected by the way they
talk.22 People who use both
vocal fry and uptalking are even more disadvantaged due to
stereotypes about the kind of
people who use them.
This is an example of the social construction of gender, or the
ways in which we create
gendered meaning through (in this case, literal) communication.
Research shows that both
men and women use uptalk often, and there’s no evidence that
women use vocal fry any
more than men do. 23 But these ways of speaking are associated
with women. The social
construction of gender implies that these vocal techniques have
gendered meaning

attached to them. Men talk like this; women talk like that.
Whether this and that are actually
different in the overall population isn’t what matters; the
important thing is that vocal fry and
uptalking are associated with women, affecting the way women
and men who use these
techniques are perceived.
The example of speech patterns suggests that we shouldn’t think
of gender as
something that we are (male or female). Instead, think of gender
as something that we do,
every single day. We do gender in the way we talk, gesture,
dress, and sit. Look at Instagram
and see if you observe men and women posing in different
ways. Remember when the
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duckface selfie was popular? Girls and women used it more
often. And maybe you notice
that a common pose for men in pictures is to cross their arms.
As you go about your day, look

at how men and women take up space. You might see men with
their legs extended from a
couch or chair, while women may sit in ways that make their
bodies take up less space.24
Candace West and Don Zimmerman developed the idea that we
do gender. They
suggested that we perform actions that produce gender; we do
gender in interactions with
others, and we take into consideration what is believed to be
appropriate for our gender.25
West and Zimmerman understood that we do gender knowing
that we will be judged
by others; we are held accountable for our gender performances.
A girl might be
reprimanded for not crossing her legs when wearing a dress.
“That’s not ladylike,” a parent
might say. Men are encouraged by their peers to “man up” if
they haven’t followed norms of
masculinity. A boy who shows interest in a Barbie might be told
“Boys don’t play with dolls!”
We’re evaluated for our gender behavior. In her research at a
high school, C.J. Pascoe found
that boys frequently called each other “faggot” as a way of
policing each other’s

masculinity.26 If boys engaged in behavior that wasn’t regarded
as masculine at this high
school – dancing, caring about clothing, being emotional – the
insult was used against them.
Sociologists, then, don’t view gender as an innate, biologically-
determined
characteristic. We focus on gender as socially and culturally
influenced and subject to
change. Gender isn’t a fact, says Judith Butler, author of Gender
Trouble. Gender is produced.
Think of it as an unspoken agreement to perform gender in
socially acceptable ways, and our
performances are so believable that gender behavior appears to
be natural. The way we act
sustains and reinforces the ideas we have created about
gender.27 Stray too far outside the
lines and you risk being ostracized or ridiculed. We have words
for those who perform gender
out of line with our expectations. Think of the dweeb, the wimp,
the dork. Perhaps you picture
a skinny, awkward guy who isn’t cool, who dresses and walks in
ways that make him stand out
and invite ridicule. We have more words for people who are
thought to be doing masculinity

wrong: douchebag, dick, prick, pussy, asshole. These may be
used as general insults, but often
they’re applied specifically to men as gender insults.
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A Google Image search for “masculine man.”
In contrast, a muscular, self-assured man may find himself
being praised by others. But is
this always the case? Does a man have to look and act like
Channing Tatum or Taye Diggs to
be considered masculine? Not always. A guy may find other
types of masculinity that work for
him, such as the class clown who gets by on his comedic skills.
Nerds aren’t normally
celebrated as models of masculinity, but it helps to invent
something and become a
billionaire, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Celebrities are
more likely to stretch the
boundaries of gender, perhaps because they feel more freedom

to express gender with less
fear of backlash. For example, the musician Young Thug wore a
long ruffled dress for the cover
art of his album No, My Name Is Jeffery. He also modeled
women’s clothing for a Calvin Klein
campaign, saying: "In my world, of course, it don't matter, you
know, you could be a gangster
with a dress or you could be a gangster with baggy pants. I feel
like there’s no such thing as
gender.”28 While we disagree with his assertion there’s no such
thing as gender, he certainly
resists gendered clothing norms. Another example is Jaden
Smith, who frequently dresses in
ways that don’t conform with gender norms. Talking about his
fashion choices, Smith said: “So,
you know, in five years when a kid goes to school wearing a
skirt, he won’t get beat up and
kids won’t get mad at him.”29 These are examples of widening
the ideas of what Black
masculinity is, says writer Mikelle Street.30
Widening the boundaries of gender is one way of challenging
the gender binary, the
classification system that allows for only two separate gender
categories. The gender binary is

just one of many gender systems, and there’s ample evidence
that even within this strict
binary system, there has always been some room for change,
growth, and flexibility. Gender
terms change over time to represent different ways of doing
gender: girly-girl, tomboy, emo,
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metrosexual. Within show business, we have particularly seen
and welcomed non-conforming
expressions of gender and sexuality. Artists like David Bowie
wore makeup and dresses and
adopted an androgynous style, incorporating both feminine and
masculine characteristics. In
1984, Prince’s song “I Would Die 4 U” proclaimed, “I’m not a
woman; I’m not a man. I am
something that you’ll never understand.” In 1981, his
“Controversy” lyrics asked, “Am I Black or
White? Am I straight or gay?” In a video released in 2021,
Demi Lovato announced “Over the
past year and a half, I’ve been doing some healing and self-

reflective work, and through this
work I’ve had the revelation that I identify as non-binary…I’ll
officially be changing my
pronouns to they/them. I feel that this best represents the
fluidity I feel in my gender expression
and allows me to feel most authentic and true to the person I
both know I am and still am
discovering."31 This reminds us of sociologist Cary Gabriel
Costello’s observation that the extra
time and space to self-reflect during the COVID-19 pandemic
may have accelerated
people’s timeline for coming out as transgender or non-
binary.32 Can you think of other
examples of non-binary gender expression?

David Bowie. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)
Let’s return to the student who asserted that gender is what your
birth certificate says
you are. For this student, gender is fixed, and gender is binary;
you are either a man or a
woman. The reality is that people experience gender in
complex, nuanced ways. For
example, Mack Beggs is a transgender wrestler who won the
Texas state high school girls’
wrestling championship in 2017 and 2018. Although he
identifies as male and wanted to
wrestle boys, he competed against girls during his high school
career because Texas law
requires students to wrestle based on the gender listed on birth
certificates. He has endured
slurs and insults, including being called “fag” and “it.” When he
was younger, Mack struggled
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:David_Bowie_Young_
Americans_Tour_1974_A.jpg#/media/File:David_Bowie_Young
_Americans_Tour_1974_A.jpg

with suicidal thoughts and engaged in self-harm. Reflecting
back to when he was younger,
Mack says: “I was angry as in why I got made like this. Why do
I have to feel this way? I
couldn’t figure out my identity.” His mother has been
supportive: “I knew that something was
different when he was five he had asked why God gave him girl
parts instead of boy parts,”
she explained in an interview.33 That Mack was legally
required to wrestle opponents based on
his birth gender illustrates the power of the gender binary
system. However, his desire to wrestle
opponents based on his identity (and his family’s acceptance of
him) represents a shift away
from the gender binary. Mack went on to make the men’s
wrestling team at Life University.34
Institutions and organizations are also acknowledging that not
everyone fits into a strict
gender binary. Originally, Facebook had only two options for
gender: male or female. In 2014,
it expanded the gender options to 58 different labels,35
including transgender and cisgender,
the broad classifiers “neither,” “other,” and “non-binary,” and

many more specific ones (for
definitions of each, look at this explainer from The Daily
Beast). By 2015, Facebook opened up
the list even more. The company’s diversity page states, “Now,
if you do not identify with the
pre-populated list of gender identities, you are able to add your
own. As before, you can add
up to ten gender terms and also have the ability to control the
audience with whom you
would like to share your custom gender. We recognize that
some people face challenges
sharing their true gender identity with others, and this setting
gives people the ability to express
themselves in an authentic way.”36
Public opinion data provides a glimpse into beliefs about gender
identity: 55% of
Americans believe there are only two genders, with men more
likely than women to express a
belief that only two genders exist. Comfort level with
transgender people is mixed; while a
majority of Americans say they’d be comfortable learning a
close friend is transgender, slightly
less than half would be comfortable if their child revealed they
were transgender. When asked

about their views of transgender rights, Americans report that
their support has increased in
recent years. A majority of Americans say they favor allowing
transgender people to be in the
U.S. military.37
With regard to gender, we are living in a time of change. But
many of our elected
officials have made it clear they do not embrace this change.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis
signed into law a ban on transgender athletes participating in
women’s sports at high school
and college levels. "In Florida, girls are going to play girls
sports and boys are going to play
boys sports," DeSantis said. The law is similar to ones in Idaho,
Arkansas, Mississippi and
Tennessee that restrict transgender girls and women from
playing on teams that match their
gender identity.38 Such legislation reinforces the myth that
trans people don’t know what’s
best for themselves and portrays them as a danger to others.39
http://www.thedailybeast.com/what-each-of-facebooks-51-new-
gender-options-means

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Intersectional perspectives on gender
When actress Patricia Arquette won the Best Actress Oscar in
2015, she used her time
on the podium and backstage to highlight the wage gap between
men and women, even in
Hollywood. Arquette’s statements became controversial,
however, because of the way she
talked about various marginalized groups in America. She said:
It’s time for women. Equal means equal. The truth is the older
women get, the less
money they make. The highest percentage of children living in
poverty are in female-headed
households. It’s inexcusable that we go around the world and
we talk about equal rights for
women in other countries and we don’t…. It’s time for all the
women in America, and all the
men that love women and all the gay people and all the people
of color that we’ve all
fought for to fight for us now.40

Her comments seem like the type of earnest expression that
would garner praise from
the audience, so why were they controversial? As feminist
author Amanda Marcotte noted,
“gay people and all the people of color” are categories that also
include women.
Arquette’s words suggested that all
women find themselves in the same
position. A different perspective, called
intersectionality, refers to the ways in which
different types of social relations are linked
together in complex ways, creating very
different experiences for different groups of
people. Developed by legal scholar
Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality argues
that gender, race, class, (dis)ability,
sexuality, geography, and other
characteristics intersect and interact to
shape individual experience.41 This means

gender can never be examined or
understood in a vacuum. We always have
other identities, interactions, and relations that affect who we
are and how we experience the
world.
When it comes to the intersection of race and masculinity, for
example, certain ideas
and images are so common we don’t think twice about them. As
Mark Anthony Neal says,
“The example I always use is if we see a Black man with a
basketball, we don't even have to
process that. We’ve seen it so many times in our lives, we know
exactly what that means.” In
contrast, the sight of a Black man with a violin would give us
pause and lead to questions:
How did he get the violin? Does he know how to play it? His
point is that some images and
definitions of Black masculinity are easily defined, while others
are not immediately grasped.42
Kimberlè Crenshaw developed the idea of intersectionality.
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kimberl%C3%A9_Cre
nshaw_Laura_Flanders_2017.png#/media/File:Kimberl%C3%A9

_Crenshaw_Laura_Flanders_2017.png
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Consider Barack Obama’s relatively quick rise to become
America’s first Black
president. To do so, he had to make America comfortable with
the idea of a Black man being
president. Part of what made that possible, Neal argues, is that
Obama represented an
exceptional Black man who stood in contrast to longstanding
stereotypes of African-American
men as lazy and irresponsible. He describes Obama’s
performance of masculinity as nearly
flawless. The only stronger performance of a Black man as
commander-in-chief we might
imagine is Will Smith portraying an American president in a
blockbuster movie.43
With an intersectional lens, we must consider the mistreatment
and dangers that Black
men face in public space. In New York City’s Central Park, a
White woman recently called the
police on Christian Cooper after saying to him "I'm going to tell

them there's an African
American man threatening my life” – which video footage
clearly shows was not true. George
Floyd died after a White police officer knelt on his neck for
more than eight minutes. Ahmaud
Arbery was shot to death after being pursued by two White men
while he was jogging.44
Sociologist Rashawn Ray offered this analysis in an interview
about Arbery: “Blackness
becomes weaponized; a Black man doesn’t necessarily have to
have a weapon on him, but
instead his physical body becomes perceived as a weapon that
could do bodily harm onto
others. This is primarily linked to stereotypes that people have
about Black men as being more
aggressive, having a higher propensity to commit crimes, or
being emotionally unstable. You
put these together and it leads to Black men being threatened by
others. And it leads to
others, like in the case of Ahmaud, enacting physical violence
onto Black men when they’re
simply doing something like going for a jog.”45

President Obama with a staff member’s daughter in the White
House. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barack_Obama_with_
Ella_Rhodes.jpg#/media/File:Barack_Obama_with_Ella_Rhodes
.jpg
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Sociological research also shows how femininity intersects with
ethnicity, religion, and
nationality. In “We Don’t Sleep Around Like White Girls Do,”
sociologist Yen Le Espiritu examines
how immigrant families from the Philippines “claim through
gender the power denied them by
racism.”46 Espiritu’s Filipino subjects rarely identified
themselves as Americans because they
equated American-ness with Whiteness. Feeling marginalized
and not fully American, they
noted differences in gender norms between cultures. They
argued that Americans – especially
American women – lack sexual morality: “In America… sex is
nothing.”47 The “ideal Filipina”
was constructed to be “everything American women were not:
she is sexually modest and

dedicated to her family; they are sexually promiscuous and
uncaring.”48 This created a lot of
restrictions on and expectations about young Filipina-American
women, who struggled
between their parents’ ways and American ways. (Of course,
restrictions on and expectations
for young women’s sexuality is not unique to Filipino families;
research on the topic spans the
globe, through many generations.) These families held up these
gender norms as a means to
regain the power they’d been denied because of their race. The
young women were
expected to uphold the image of a “good Filipino girl.” In doing
this, the young women
weren’t only keepers of the home; they were protectors of
cultural authenticity. They were
expected to maintain gendered norms and ethnocultural ones
(cultural influences of the
ethnic groups to which we belong).
Espiritu’s work is a great example of an intersectional lens on
gender. To understand
people’s experiences, we can’t separate out gender relations and
remove race or ethnicity

from the equation. We can’t eliminate the generational divide
between immigrant parents
and their American-born children, or forget to account for
geography, language, or time
period. All of these factors together intersect to create our
everyday gendered reality. The
same is true for you, whatever your story.
REVIEW SHEET: SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF
GENDER
CLICK THE LINK FOR:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES KEY QUESTIONS
AUDIO KEY POINTS
PRACTICE QUIZ KEY PEOPLE
VOCABULARY CROSSWORD PUZZLES KEY TERMS
https://www.sociologyexperiment.com/product/gender-and-
sexuality/
sexuality/

INEQUALITIES AND PROGRESS
intersectional feminism?
workplace?
else can we do?
Feminism
We’ve discussed how gender is a social construction that may
change over time or
context. Because gender divides people into categories, people
who fall into those
categories can experience the world differently, with tangible
consequences for their lives
and life chances.
The most notable consequence is persistent gender inequality,
where individuals or
groups are treated and perceived differently based upon their
gender. Because of persistent
inequality in social, political, economic, and interpersonal

status, feminism has a long history.
Feminism is usually used in the singular form, but it refers to a
collection of movements that
advocate for equality for all sexes and genders. In the U.S.,
these movements stem from a
broad coalition of women who fought for the right to vote,
receive an education, have
custody of their children, own property, get married and
divorced when they wished, and
have the same career choices as men. Today there are multiple
feminisms, and people of all
genders call themselves feminist.
The term also often comes with negative associations. In Bad
Feminist, Roxane Gay
recalls an argument with a man she was dating in which he said
to her, “Don’t raise your voice
to me,” before continuing by giving his opinion about how
women should talk to men. This
confused Gay because she hadn’t raised her voice, nor had
anyone said something like that
to her before. The man concluded by asking, “You’re some kind
of feminist, aren’t you?”

Page 16
His “accusation” reflects the stereotypical idea that
feminists are simply angry women, rather than passionate
individuals or activists who are concerned with achieving
equality between all genders. Some fundamental feminist
principles are equal pay for equal work, reproductive
freedom, reducing all forms of harassment and violence
against women, and improving the treatment and status of
women throughout the world.
But these principles don’t encompass all of feminism.
Intersectional feminists like bell hooks remind us that we
can’t divorce gender from other social relations. In her
book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, hooks is
critical of feminist ideas that became popular in the 1960s,
such as the work of Betty Friedan.49 Friedan spoke of “the
problem that has no name” in her 1963 book The Feminine
Mystique.50 The problem was being dissatisfied with the life of

a stay-at-home wife. There was a
yearning for something more, a longing to have a career. But
this feminism focused on White
women of the middle and upper classes. As hooks pointed out, it
ignored poor White women
and women who weren’t White; these women often had to work
to help support the family,
even if they would have loved the opportunity to stay home with
their children. Middle-class
and upper-class women have more choices, advantages, and
opportunities than do poor
White women and women of color. And the choices and
opportunities for women of color are
constrained not only by sexism but also racism.
Feminists of color note that reproductive rights in the U.S. are
usually discussed in terms
of being able to prevent pregnancy. However, the U.S. also has
a long history of coerced and
forcing sterilization and contraception on Native American and
African American women.51
Some women were sterilized without their knowledge
or consent while having other surgical procedures.
These forced sterilizations during other procedures or

for unnecessary reasons were so common that civil
rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer dubbed them
“Mississippi Appendectomies.”52
Another example of intersectional feminism is
LGBTQ feminists noting that the discourse on coming
out typically encourages people to openly
acknowledge their sexuality to spread awareness
and “refuse to hide.” But for some people, coming
out is not only difficult, but dangerous. Alan Pelaez
Intersectionality means that we should
understand people as more than one
thing-even conflicting things-at the
same time. (Source)
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
https://pixabay.com/en/smile-color-laugh-black-1485850/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosie_the_Riveter_m
ural_on_an_abandoned_building_in_Sacramento,_California_L
CCN2013633913.tif#/media/File:Rosie_the_Riveter_mural_on_
an_abandoned_building_in_Sacramento,_California_LCCN2013
633913.tif
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosie_the_Riveter_m

ural_on_an_abandoned_building_in_Sacramento,_California_L
CCN2013633913.tif#/media/File:Rosie_the_Riveter_mural_on_
an_abandoned_building_in_Sacramento,_California_LCCN2013
633913.tif
Page 17
Lopez explains that some undocumented LGBTQ people feel
they can’t come out – being
undocumented is stressful enough on its own. Some LGBTQ
folks live in areas where they don’t
have a community they can turn to when they feel alone. Others
have families with religious or
cultural traditions that mean choosing between coming out and
having a place to live and
food to eat.53 Intersectional feminism stresses the importance
of taking all social relations into
consideration, so we don’t erase the full set of people’s
experiences. An inclusive feminism
takes into account the needs of all women and their differences
along lines of race,
nationality, social class, religion, gender expression, body type,
and (dis)ability.54
Institutional inequality

Imagine you’re in a meeting at work. You make a suggestion,
but no one really
responds. A few minutes later, Sam from accounting makes the
same suggestion and your
boss says, “That’s a great idea. Good work, Sam.” You begin to
wonder: Did the boss like
Sam’s suggestion because he phrased it better? Or because Sam
is a man and you’re a
woman? Later in the meeting, someone notices the coffee pot is
empty and asks you to refill
it. You wonder: Is your coworker asking you because you’re
sitting close to the coffee? Or
does the person think it’s your job? At the end of the meeting,
as you get up to leave, the boss
tells you that you’re doing a good job and rests his hand on your
lower back as he tells the
room that he’s proud of you. Again, you wonder: Is he just
being friendly? Would he make the
same kind of physical contact with Sam from accounting?
This description of a work meeting might sound far-fetched,
but sociologists have
documented extensive work-based gender inequality. For
women in corporate environments,

it’s not uncommon to have their authority questioned, be
interrupted in meetings, face
expectations that they be nice and never complain, and
experience unwanted sexual
advances.
An article on gender in the technology industry, “Why Is
Silicon Valley So Awful to
Women?”, described women who had dealt with all of these
issues.55 Regarding the
expectation to be nice and not complain, software engineer
Tracy Chou’s experience was
that men who worked as engineers were not held to the same
standard; excuses were made
for male engineers who were difficult co-workers. The tech
industry is male-dominated, and
gender norms have been slow to change. “I am angry that things
are no better for a 22-year-
old at the beginning of her career than they were for me 25
years ago when I was just starting
out,” says Bethanye Blount, one of the women mentioned in the
article.
Results from a survey of 210 women in the technology industry
(specifically Silicon
Valley) indicate that the experiences of the women in the article

aren’t uncommon:56
-level tasks that male
colleagues were not asked
to do, such as taking notes and ordering food;
Page 18
se of
their gender;
a superior).
With experiences like this, it’s not surprising that women leave
the tech industry at more
than twice the rate men do. Women hold approximately 25% of
computing and
mathematical jobs in the U.S., and the percentage of computer
and information science
majors who are women is lower now (18%) than at its peak in
1984 (37%).57
Another workplace environment where women encounter
inequality is the restaurant

industry. Sexual harassment from owners, coworkers, and
customers is a common experience
for women workers, including sexualized jokes, unwanted
touching, and comments on their
appearance. In their research, Deborah Harris and Patti Giuffre
found that a culture of
harassment is a barrier to women’s success in the culinary
industry. They point out that there
isn’t always a process in place for restaurant workers to report
harassment; some restaurants
don’t even have a Human Resources department. Moreover,
women are often pressured to
not report harassment. As Harris and Giuffre point out: “Such
conditions make it difficult to
prove when someone has a history of harassment and
misbehavior. Women then have to rely
on informal networks to learn if a workplace is safe. This can be
especially difficult for less
advantaged women, such as interns new to the industry or
undocumented workers who make
up a large portion of the lower ranks of the restaurant industry.
These women may feel they
have little recourse from harassment.”58

Women are not only treated differently than men, they’re also
paid less. For full-time
and part-time workers in the U.S., women earned 84% as much
as men in 2020.59 This disparity
in pay is amplified when we consider race and ethnicity as well.
White men have higher hourly
wages than women of all races, but the highest earners of all
groups are Asian-American men.
The wage gap has narrowed significantly in recent decades, but
some groups of women
The tech industry is male-dominated, which can present
challenges
for women. (Source)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wocintechchat/25392653883/in/p
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7ouDdU-8ktTky-qMF7Tg-4tqjyj-S3Y6qY-drMsHS-Rdtrvm-
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6LDH4j-VHneTx-9B4CZ1-gjWF1f-86Ewcy-8A4gXi-FbT2X3-
bwXeyk-8T4NHA
Page 19

have made much more progress than others. For example, White
women earned 60 cents for
every dollar earned by White men in 1980; it’s now 82 cents. In
comparison, Black women
earned 56 cents for every dollar earned by White men in 1980;
this has only increased to 65
cents.60
Figure 1: Ratio of Women’s to Men’s Earnings, 1980-2009
(Source: Wikipedia Commons)
One reason for this wage gap is that many jobs in the U.S.
economy are low-paying
and more likely to be held by women. The low-wage jobs that
women mostly do – food
preparation, restaurant servers, cosmetology, cleaning,
housekeeping, teaching assistants,
child care, elderly care, home care aides, office work, cashiers –
are projected to increase.
Women of color are heavily represented in these low-wage jobs.
There are fewer low-wage jobs “for men,” and they pay more.
Examples include carpet
installers, construction laborers, drywall installers, janitors,

painters, roofers, stock clerks, taxi
drivers, butchers, head cooks, equipment cleaners, maintenance
workers, and security
guards.61
As Jessica Schieder and Elise Gould point out, the sorting of
men and women into
different occupations is partly shaped by discrimination and
social norms. Ideas and
expectations about what constitutes “men's work” and “women's
work” impact our choices to
pursue particular careers. Family members, peers, and mentors
encourage or discourage our
job interests. And when women enter a profession in greater
numbers, the pay in that field
tends to decline; when greater numbers of men enter a
profession, wages go up. For
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Gender_pay_gap,
_1980-2009.001.png#/media/File:US_Gender_pay_gap,_1980-
2009.001.png
Page 20
example, computer programming, a set of jobs initially held

primarily by women, became
more lucrative as it became more male-dominated.62
During the COVID-19 pandemic, women have been more likely
than men to leave the
labor force. A key reason is that women took on additional
childcare responsibilities due to
schools and daycare facilities closing or moving to remote
instruction. Another important
factor is that women are more likely to have the types of jobs
affected by closures caused by
COVID-19 health measures (personal care services and food
preparation, for example, which
generally could not be performed remotely), making women
more likely to experience
unemployment. Occupations that have been less impacted by
layoffs during the pandemic
are more likely to be held by men (engineering and
management, for example).63
Sociologists’ work shows us that inequalities are more
complicated than we often
assume. Take the motherhood penalty, the systematic
disadvantages in wages, benefits, and
other career factors that are associated with motherhood.
Studies of mothers who work show

that the costs of raising a child are disproportionately felt by
women.64 Michelle Budig and
Paula England showed that the wage penalty increases with the
number of children, with a
7% wage penalty per child.65 Further, Shelley J. Correll,
Stephen Benard, and In Paik’s work
shows that not only were mothers perceived as less competent at
their jobs, but fathers were
sometimes seen as more competent. Fathers’ paychecks
sometimes even increased from
being a parent. This benefit in wages and perceived competence
is called the fatherhood
bonus. Look back at Figure 2: there isn’t a single state where
mothers, on average, make as
much as fathers.66
Class interacts with the motherhood penalty and fatherhood
bonus. The bias is
strongest at the extremes. High-income men enjoy the biggest
wage bump, while poor
women suffer the biggest penalty. In other words, as Michelle
Budig puts it, “[f]amilies with
lower resources are bearing more of the economic costs of
raising kids.”67

Page 21
Figure 2: Mothers’ Earnings Compared to Fathers’ Earnings, by
State
Race matters, too. Rebecca Glauber’s research suggests that for
married White and
Latino men, having a child is associated with increased wages.
But married Black men get a
smaller fatherhood bonus, on average, than White and Latino
men do.68 Glauber also found
no motherhood wage penalty for Hispanic women, and a wage
penalty for Black women
only after they have at least two children. However, all White
mothers experienced a wage
penalty. One reason for these racial differences might be that
motherhood and work haven’t
historically been separate in Black and Hispanic families, which
might increase overall
motivation to work. Glauber also suggests that there might be a

“floor” to the motherhood
Page 22
wage penalty. That is, African-American and Hispanic/Latino
women already earn less than
White women; there may not be much room for their wages to
fall even more.69 Overall,
Glauber’s work indicates that race and gender intersect with
workplace experiences to
create and support gendered inequalities.
There are indicators of American women's progress. For
instance, women are more
likely to enroll in college than men are.70 Women now graduate
from college at higher rates
than men and are more likely to attend graduate school.71 But
despite this progress, gender
inequality persists in our institutions, and perhaps nowhere is
this clearer than in politics.
On June 7, 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a speech after
ending her campaign for
the Democratic presidential nomination. She endorsed her

competitor, then-Senator Barack
Obama. The theme of equality was a key component of her
speech. The most memorable
part involved her vision of the future:
As we gather here today in this historic, magnificent building,
the 50th woman to leave
this Earth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into
space, we will someday launch a
woman into the White House. Although we weren't able to
shatter that highest, hardest glass
ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks
in it…and the light is shining
through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the
sure knowledge that the path will
be a little easier next time.72
The glass ceiling is a metaphor to describe barriers that women
face in the workplace
that prevent them from reaching higher positions. The phrase
reportedly originated in 1979
from a conversation between two women who worked for
Hewlett-Packard. One of those
women, Katherine Lawrence, recalled a presentation she gave
that year about corporate

culture: "I presented the concept of how in corporate America,
the official policy is one way—
the sky's the limit—but in actuality, the sky had a glass ceiling
for women.”73
The term became popular after it was used in a 1986 special
report in the Wall Street
Journal that focused on obstacles women encountered in
corporate America.74 The report
mentioned several problems: being excluded from an important
meeting or informal
networking session that takes place between men on a golf
course, not being offered an
executive position even after a series of promotions, blatant
stereotypes about women being
unfit for management, and assumptions that women would
prioritize family over career.
Clinton came close again to breaking through the glass ceiling
when most polls
indicated she was going to beat Donald Trump in the 2016
election to become the first female
president of the United States. Love him or hate him, consider
this: Trump won the presidency
despite it coming to light that he said that fame enabled him to
treat women any way he

wanted. In 2005, when he was nearly 60 years old, he was
recorded saying: “You know I’m
automatically attracted to beautiful…I just start kissing them.
It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t
even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can
do anything… Grab them by
Page 23
the pussy. You can do anything.” Trump released a statement
describing his words as locker-
room banter, saying “I apologize if anyone was offended.”75
Put all of your powers of imagination to use for a moment to
consider how the
American public would have reacted had Hillary Clinton been
recording saying “You know
I’m automatically attracted to handsome…I just
start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I
don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let
you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by
the dick. You can do anything.” We write this not

for shock value, but rather to seriously
contemplate how voters would react to a
woman saying this. This thought exercise reveals
just how salient gender relations are in our
political system.
Raw statistics reinforce the point. At the
state level, just 44 women have served as
governors in the United States. In 2011, Nikki
Haley and Susana Martinez became the first women of color to
serve as governors, in South
Carolina and New Mexico, respectively.76 There hasn’t yet
been an African American woman
governor.
A strong presence on the Supreme Court is an indicator of
impressive progress for
women in America. Three of the 9 current Supreme Court
justices are women: Sonia
Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett. Sotomayor is
the first Latina to serve on the
Supreme Court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the first Jewish
woman – and only the second

woman ever – to be appointed to the Supreme Court, in 1993.
She served as a justice until her
death in 2020. Yet even on the most prestigious court in the
nation, women are treated
differently. A recent examination of transcripts of oral
arguments before the Court showed
that male justices interrupt the female justices nearly three
times as often as they interrupt
other male judges.77 During the process of being confirmed for
a seat on the Supreme Court in
2020, Barrett was asked by Senator John Cornyn “How do you
and your husband manage two
full-time professional careers and, at the same time, take care of
your large family?” Senator
Dianne Feinstein asked Barrett if she had a “magic formula” for
handling her parenting and
career. Such questions highlighted her family life and offered
praise for balancing family and
career, even though these are not direct qualifications for the
job of being a Supreme Court
justice. Moreover, these are not the kinds of questions typically
asked of men.78
Kamala Harris made history in the 2020 election by becoming
the first woman Vice

President of the United States. As Rebecca Traister observes,
Harris is a historical anomaly,
given that she is a Black woman, of Indian descent, and in 2017
was only the second Black
Former South Carolina governor and UN
Ambassador Nikki Haley. (Source: Wikipedia
Commons)
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munity_business_partners_for_the_launch_of_Operation_Palmet
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imed_at_making_140226-F-XH297-
660.jpg#/media/File:South_Carolina_Gov._Nikki_Haley_joins_
U.S._military_service_members_and_community_business_part
ners_for_the_launch_of_Operation_Palmetto_Employment,_a_st
atewide_military_employment_initiative_aimed_at_making_140
226-F-XH297-660.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:South_Carolina_Gov.
_Nikki_Haley_joins_U.S._military_service_members_and_com
munity_business_partners_for_the_launch_of_Operation_Palmet
to_Employment,_a_statewide_military_employment_initiative_a
imed_at_making_140226-F-XH297-
660.jpg#/media/File:South_Carolina_Gov._Nikki_Haley_joins_
U.S._military_service_members_and_community_business_part
ners_for_the_launch_of_Operation_Palmetto_Employment,_a_st
atewide_military_employment_initiative_aimed_at_making_140
226-F-XH297-660.jpg

woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate (the first being Carol
Moseley Braun in 1993). As Traister
notes, voters passed over the six women who ran for president--
Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten
Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, and Marianne
Williamson. Harris then was presented
to voters as Joe Biden’s right-hand woman.79
Social inequalities also affect our bodies. Take the example of
life expectancy: there
are well-documented differences by gender and race. First,
women overall live longer than
men. And second, Whites live longer than Blacks or Latinos.80
Think about Figure 3. On many measures, women in the U.S.
and elsewhere experience
social inequalities. Women have higher rates of chronic disease,
as well as higher rates of
depression and anxiety.81 And they’re more likely to be victims
of violence.82 Women also
generally earn less than men. So if women are systematically
socially disadvantaged in
multiple ways, why do they live longer than men? This is

simplifying things a bit; if you look at
the graph, you can see that Hispanic men have a longer life
expectancy than Black women.
But in general, women live longer than men. Why?
Figure 3: Life Expectancy at Birth, by Hispanic Origin, Race,
and Sex, 2006–201283
(Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Vital Statistics Reports)
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), there may be
multiple reasons. First,
there could be sex-based biological reasons. For example,
women’s higher levels of estrogen
may protect them against high cholesterol; men’s higher rates of
testosterone may leave
Page 25
them vulnerable to cholesterol-related disease.84 But WEF also
notes that women tend to be
more “health-aware”; that is, women are, on average, more in

tune with physical and mental
symptoms and may be more able to communicate their issues
with healthcare providers.
Women are also more likely to go to the doctor when something
is wrong.85 Men may feel
pressure to act in “masculine” ways, which might mean holding
in problems and not reaching
out for help, trying to “tough it out.” It’s perhaps partly due to
these reasons that men are also
more likely to die by suicide.86 As with all things human,
gender inequality is complex and
multi-faceted.
Gender inequality, though, isn’t the result of physiology,
anatomy, or hormones. It is
produced, maintained, and embedded in our institutions.87 If
nature caused gender
inequality, then that inequality would be the same at all times
and in all places. But it isn’t. We
don’t all experience gender the same way. This is cause for
hope. If we build inequality, we
can dismantle it, too.
Gender and violence
In July 2017, author and

transgender rights activist Janet
Mock appeared on The Breakfast
Club, a syndicated radio show that
calls itself “the world’s most
dangerous morning show.”88 Mock,
a transgender woman, went on the
show to talk about her new book.
The conversation on the show,
which also featured comedian Lil
Duval and radio personality
Charlamagne Tha God, reveals something troubling about
gender and violence:
[host] DJ Envy poses a hypothetical question to his guest about
dating and sleeping
with a woman who discloses that she’s trans after four months
of courtship.
“This might sound messed up and I don’t care,” Duval says.
“She dying. I can’t deal
with that.”
“That’s a hate crime,” Charlamagne says. “You can’t do that.”

“You manipulated me to believe in this thing,” Duval says,
before continuing, “If one
did that to me, and they didn’t tell me, I’mma be so mad I’m
probably going to want
to kill them.”89
This conversation exists within a context in which violence and
assault are
disproportionately experienced by transgender people. In a
national study of 1,876 students in
grades K-12 who identify as transgender or gender non-
conforming, respondents reported
Janet Mock. (Source)
https://flic.kr/p/ktHDrT
Page 26
high rates of harassment (78%), physical assault (35%), and
sexual assault (12%). The
harassment and violence experienced by these K-12 students
comes not only from other
students but also teachers and staff.90 In fact, the Bureau of
Justice Statistics Office for Victims

of Crime reports that one-half to two-thirds of trans people are
sexually abused or assaulted at
some point in their lives.91 According to the Human Rights
Campaign, “…it is clear that fatal
violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color,
and that the intersections of
racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia conspire to
deprive them of employment,
housing, healthcare, and other necessities, barriers that make
them vulnerable.”92 Sadly, the
HRC reports that “advocates tracked at least 27 deaths of
transgender or gender non-
conforming people in the U.S. due to fatal violence, the
majority of whom were Black
transgender women.” 93 HRC notes that this high rate of
violence reflects anti-transgender bias
as well as the social circumstances faced by a higher number of
transgender people than the
general population, including poverty, homelessness, and being
forced into sex work.
The statistics on gender and violence are eye-opening and
disturbing. As reported by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
approximately 1 in 5 women in the

United States experiences rape or attempted rape in her lifetime.
Among women who report
experiencing a rape, 40% were first victimized before age 18,
with more than 28% indicating
they were first raped between the ages of 11 and 17. Other
forms of sexual violence also
occur at high rates; 12.5% of women have experienced sexual
coercion (verbal, non-physical
pressure that results in unwanted penetration), 27.3% have
experienced unwanted sexual
contact (such as fondling), and 32.1% have experienced
unwanted sexual experiences that
didn’t involve physical contact (for example, verbal
harassment). 94
(Source: CDC data)
Young women grow up hearing advice about staying safe from
sexual violence. We
are told to carry pepper spray in our purses, not to walk alone at
night, and to carefully watch

our drinks at parties to make sure they aren’t tampered with.
Advice like this assumes that
people are at highest risk of being victimized by a stranger, but
in fact it is estimated that 80%
of such crimes fall under the category of acquaintance rape, a
rape or sexual assault that
occurs between people who already know each other.95
Survivors of sexual violence,
especially those who know their assailants, are often hesitant to
speak out about their
experience; only about 34% of all rapes or sexual assaults are
ever reported to the police.96
Some survivors don’t speak out because they worry about
retaliation; others struggle
with feelings of guilt, shame, or the fear that they will not be
believed. Unfortunately, those
who do disclose may become targets of victim-blaming, when
survivors are viewed as
responsible for their own assaults. The tendency to blame
survivors is one example of what
sociologists refer to as a rape myth. Rape myths are
stereotyped or false beliefs about sexual

violence that may excuse or naturalize the perpetrator’s
behavior (for example, arguing that
a man who is sexually aroused might “not be able to control
himself”) while shifting
responsibility to the victim (“what did she think would happen
if she dressed like that?” or “they
shouldn’t have drunk so much”).
Although rape and sexual assault are often framed as “women’s
issues,” both
cisgender and transgender men also experience sexual violence.
About 2.6% of men report
experiencing rape or attempted rape in their lifetimes, and
17.9% report experiencing some
kind of unwanted sexual contact.97 Because one common rape
myth assumes that men
“must” always want sex or sexual attention, male survivors of
sexual assault may worry that
they won’t be believed if they disclose their experience.
“Becoming a victim” is also
incompatible with the gendered expectations our society places
on boys and men, who are
often taught that being masculine means being strong, dominant,
and in control.

Our homes, families, and intimate relationships should be a
place of safety and support
for us, but unfortunately this is not always the case. Intimate
partner violence (IPV) (also
sometimes referred to as domestic violence) is usually defined
as abuse occurring between
current or former spouses, someone they are dating, or romantic
partners. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 36% of
American women reported
experiencing “sexual violence (such as rape, attempted rape or
sexual coercion), physical
violence, or stalking” at the hands of an intimate partner at least
once in their lives. Men
reported only a slightly lower rate of such victimization
(33.6%), though the experience of
“severe physical violence” (such as being punched, choked or
attacked with a weapon) still
seems to be more common for women (21.4%) than men
(14.9%).98
One common question that students often have about IPV and
family violence is “why
doesn’t the victim just leave?” The reasons are varied, but one
factor is that such relationships

often involve elements of power and coercion that go beyond
the types of violence already
addressed. For example, some abusers will use proxy violence,
harming or threatening to
harm someone else, like a child, other loved one, or even a pet,
if the victim tries to leave. In
Page 28
fact, threats to harm household pets are so common, some
domestic violence shelters now
allow victims to bring them along. Reproductive coercion
involves forcing parenthood on an
unwilling partner through means ranging from violence to
contraceptive sabotage (for
example, by tampering with birth control to make it less
effective); the resulting parenthood
can increase the victim’s dependence on the abuser. Finally,
abusers may consolidate power
through tactics like financial abuse—preventing the victim
from working or restricting their access to money they’ve
earned. Such tactics can be found in other kinds of coercive,

controlling relationships as well. In 2021, global media reported
on allegations made by pop star Britney Spears that her father
had abused his position as her legal conservator. A
conservatorship may be granted by a court when an
individual is deemed unable to make their own decisions due
to an issue like mental illness or dementia (in Spears’s case, her
father’s conservatorship dates from two temporary psychiatric
hospitalizations in 2008). Spears, now 38, has petitioned the
court to remove her father from this position, testifying that he
has used it to gain control of her finances, coerce her to
perform, restrict who she dated, and even to force her to stay
on contraceptives against her will.
Gender is also a key factor in school shootings. When you hear
the phrase “school
shooting,” what comes to mind? Maybe you think of December
14, 2012, the day 20-year-old
Adam Lanza shot and killed twenty children and six adults at
Sandy Hook Elementary School
before shooting himself. Or maybe you’re reminded of April 16,
2007, the date of one of the

deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history;99 23-year old
Seung-Hui Cho walked onto the
Virginia Tech campus and opened fire, killing 32 people and
injuring 17 before killing himself.
You might even think back to April 20, 1999, when Eric Harris
and Dylan Klebold stormed into
Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing twelve
students and a teacher. Then they,
too, killed themselves.
Sociologist Katherine Newman argues that gender plays a
significant role in these
shootings. Her data show that a complex mix of social factors,
such as rigid social
enforcement of masculine stereotypes and being rejected and
ridiculed by peers and desired
romantic partners, contribute to boys’ feelings of emasculation.
These shooters lash out in
anger and humiliation through violence, which they use to
reframe themselves as powerful
and masculine.100 School shootings are overwhelmingly a male
phenomenon. In fact, there
are so few cases of female mass shooters that they haven’t even
been studied.101 But what

does that mean for our understandings of why violence occurs?
Britney Spears (Source)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Britney_Spears_2013.
jpg
Page 29
Feminist sociology of deviance is a diverse area, but scholars
share the perspective that
traditional understandings of crime and violence are
androcentric—they focus mainly on the
experiences of men. As sociologist Sally Simpson explains, the
field “…is shaped by male
experiences and understandings of the social world. Such
studied realities form the core of
‘general’ theories of crime/deviance without taking female
experience, as crime participant
or victim, into account.”102 So feminist work on crime and
violence attempts to include
women.
For example, Meda Chesney-Lind’s work focuses on the

experiences of young women.
She argues that juvenile justice systems can criminalize the
survival behaviors of young
women.103 Girls are more likely than boys to suffer child
sexual abuse. Chesney-Lind shows that
some of the delinquent behavior common to young girls is
survival behavior associated with
sexual abuse trauma, like “running away from home, difficulties
in school, truancy… early
marriage,” and promiscuity.104 Ultimately, Chesney-Lind
argues that a feminist perspective on
deviance provides a fuller explanation of the causes and context
of delinquency.105
Did you know that one of the first modern-day school shooters
was a teenage girl? On
January 29, 1979, 16-year old Brenda Spencer went to Grover
Cleveland Elementary School
near her San Diego home armed with a .22 rifle and shot across
the street, killing the principal
and the custodian. Spencer also wounded eight children and a
police officer. When the
police asked Spencer why she did it, she replied, “I don’t like
Mondays.”106 In 2014, school
administrators at Radnor High School in Wayne, Pennsylvania,

found a notebook from a 17-
year-old girl. She wrote that she wanted to be the first female
“mass” shooter. From her
notebook: “But imagine the power…The bullets leaving the gun
with a loud bang, piercing
kids around me, the way they collapse, their blood splattering
the floor...the screams.”107 And
in March 2017, 18-year-old Nicole Cevario was pulled out of
her high school class by her
father. He was worried about her strange behavior and read her
diary. In it, she revealed plans
to bomb her school and shoot teachers and students. Cevario
wrote about her admiration for
the Columbine and Sandy Hook shootings.108 When the police
investigated, they found that
Cevario had a stockpile of bomb-making materials and a
gun.109 Her father called the school
in the nick of time; she was pulled out of class on March 23rd,
and had planned the attack for
April 5th.
The prevailing stereotype is that school shooters are men –
especially White men. But
young women are also capable of planning and carrying out
violence. Yet when female

shooters commit violence, often these women and girls aren’t
recognized as school
shooters.110 Since our collective ideas about school shooters
overlook those who aren’t White
males, our models of prevention and detection might not be as
good as they could be; we risk
missing important red flags for women-led mass violence.111
And that has the potential to be
devastating.
Page 30
We also see gender differences in how we understand violence
perpetrated on
women. Often, these differences are intersectional as well. Take
the example of Breonna
Taylor, who was killed in her home by police officers after they
burst into her apartment as she
slept in the spring of 2020. Andrea Ritchie, a police misconduct
attorney, was shocked that
Taylor’s name wasn’t voiced along with George Floyd, Ahmaud
Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and

others at the protests demanding justice for Black people killed
by police that began in early
summer. In her work, Ritchie argues that a lot of our
understanding and discourse of the victims
of police brutality center around Black (mostly cisgender and
heterosexual) men. Ritchie
argues that Black women and LGBTQ people have often faced
multiple forms of
discrimination with less representation in the national
conversation. Ritchie’s work
contextualizes cases of women who have suffered police
violence and mass incarceration,
such as Taylor, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Dajerria Becton,
Monica Jones, Mya Hall, Eleanor
Bumpurs, and Kayla Moore.112 She tells the New York Times,
“We’re not trying to compete with
Floyd’s story, we’re trying to complete the story.”113
Black women have also been at the forefront of violence
prevention: the Black Lives
Matter movement was begun by three Black women, Opal
Tometi, Patrisse Cullors, and Alicia
Garza. Since its creation in response to the acquittal of Trayvon
Martin’s murderer, the

campaign has grown into a national entity, with chapters across
the United States;
additionally, the phrase and hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has
become the rallying cry of racial
justice used by people across races and backgrounds. It remains
important to consider and
reconsider the ways in which gender intersects with race, class,
sexuality, dis/ability,
geography, and more, to affect people’s experiences as victims,
witnesses, and agents of
change.
REVIEW SHEET: INEQUALITIES AND PROGRESS
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sexuality/

sexuality/
Page 31
SEXUALITIES
ce, gender, and other social relations
affect how we experience
and understand sexuality?
The creation of sexuality
“I was born this way.” This is the refrain of Lady Gaga’s hugely
popular 2011 hit, which
asserted that the performer’s sexuality was with her from birth.
Americans sang along, but did
we agree with her?
For the past 40 years, the Gallup polling organization has asked
Americans whether gay
and lesbian people are “born that way” or whether their sexual
preferences are due to factors

such as their upbringing and environment. When Gallup first
collected data on this question in
1977, 13% of Americans selected “born with it” and 56%
selected “upbringing/environment”
(the rest answered “both,” “neither,” or “no opinion”). In 2018,
50% of Americans thought gay
and lesbians were born that way, while 30% selected
“upbringing/environment.” Only 10%
answered “both.”114
The data are clear—more and more Americans agree
with Lady Gaga. But are they right? Increasingly, scholars
have noted issues with the “nature over nurture” idea of
sexual orientation. For example, the problem with the “born
this way” idea, according to sociologist Shamus Khan, is that it
overstates the significance of biology.115 Khan doesn’t claim
that biology has no influence on sexual behavior, but argues
that it’s impossible to understand our sexuality without paying
more attention to our culture. The 10% of Americans who
answered “both” to the Gallup poll probably got it right:
sexuality is influenced by both biology and environment.

Let’s redirect our focus to ponder other questions
about sexuality: What kinds of sexual behaviors are
appropriate? Who is an acceptable sexual partner, and at
what age? Is there a “right” age to have sex for the first time?
The answers to these kinds of questions are shaped by society.
“Appropriate” sexual behavior varies historically and culturally.
Khan gives the example
of pederasty, in which adult men form sexual relationships with
boys; it was practiced in
Lady Gaga. (Source: Wikimedia
Commons)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Gaga_JWT_Mo
ntreal_BM,_2017-11-03_(cropped).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Gaga_JWT_Mo
ntreal_BM,_2017-11-03_(cropped).jpg
Page 32
ancient Greece. This seems shocking in our society today, but
sexual behaviors and

expressions, like gender, change over time and are not the same
across cultures. Our
understanding of sex, sexuality, and gender has always been in
a state of evolution, and will
continue to change.
Like gender, sociologists think of sexuality as a social
construction. Rather than seeing
sexuality as “natural,” Ruth Hubbard encourages us to
understand it as something we’re
taught to express in socially acceptable ways.116 Parents may
teach their children that sex is
about becoming mothers and fathers, or they might teach their
kids about “responsible”
sexual conduct. But what does being sexually responsible
actually mean? We may learn that
we should avoid sexually transmitted infections, or shouldn’t
get pregnant “too young.” But
who – or what – determines “too young?” These ideas can be
driven by religion, tradition,
scientific and technological advancements, local culture, or
practical health concerns.
Consider the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has affected
sexual behavior. During a

pandemic with stay-at-home orders and mandated social
distancing, some activities may be
deemed too risky for strangers and acquaintances to engage in
together. On the other hand,
for people already living together, sexual activity may (or may
not) be increasing. Data are still
being collected, but one thing is for sure: our society guides
(and often limits) our ideas about
sexual behavior.
During adolescence, we’re introduced to different ideas about
sex from our peers.
Popular culture soaks us with images about sex and reinforces
notions of what being sexy
supposedly means. People who consume pornography are
presented with a set of ideas
about what sexual activity looks like. All of this information
constructs our beliefs about what it
means to be a sexual person in our society.
Together we construct the meaning of labels such as “gay,”
“lesbian,” “homosexual,”
“heterosexual,” “bisexual,” and “pansexual,” and create
distinctions between sexually
acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. Heterosexuality itself
was invented, as there was a

time that men and women weren’t thought to be sexual beings,
or heterosexuals. In the first
half of the 1800s, sexual activity between men and women was
supposed to serve the
purpose of creating children; sex was for reproduction, not
pleasure. This period was
characterized by a production economy, focused on
manufacturing and otherwise
producing items to sell. In this economy, the body was viewed
as an instrument of work, and
sex was a means for reproduction. Erotic desire and a “healthy”
interest in sex didn’t exist as
we know them today. As Jonathan Ned Katz explains, ideas of
men and women as erotic
beings emerged in the second half of the 1800s, as the economy
shifted to one based on
consumption of goods and services.117 The body began to be
seen differently. By the late 19th
century, medical professionals believed men and women
naturally had a healthy libido
(sexual desire) and sexual pleasure was considered normal, even
necessary. A shift away from
believing sex was primarily for reproduction and toward
viewing sex as pleasurable mirrored

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-
sex-guidance.pdf
Page 33
the economic shift from a production-based economy to a
consumer-based economy. In a
consumer society, pleasure is valued. We seek pleasure from
what we buy. This value extends
to our bodies; we see our bodies as avenues to experience
pleasure.
As Hanne Blank explains, there’s “a
difference between simply being and being
known.” In other words, acknowledgement
and written documentation from authority
figures changes something from simply existing
into something that is socially understood to be
“a real thing.”118 The word “heterosexual” first
appeared in the United States in an 1892
medical article by Dr. James G. Kiernan. But his

conception of “heterosexual” was different
from how we think of it today. Kiernan, who still
viewed procreation as the proper purpose of
sex, regarded heterosexuals as perverted
because they weren’t exclusively having sex in
order to get pregnant. He deemed their sexual desires to be
abnormal because of their
interest in sexual pleasure.119 Kiernan’s article was also one of
the earliest to use the word
“homosexual,” a group he also believed were deviant. Whereas
heterosexuals were deviant
because they didn’t always have sex for the purpose of
reproduction, Kiernan considered
homosexuals deviant because their sexual desire diverged from
gender norms.
In the first section of the chapter, we explained how individuals
“do gender” in
everyday life. Just as gender can be seen as a routine, daily set
of activities, so can our sexual
identity. For instance, we may act in ways to deliberately
project our sexual identity and let
others know we are heterosexual or homosexual. Think back to

the example of Donald Trump
boasting about doing whatever he wants to women. It’s
impossible to know why a prominent
individual would make that statement, but one interpretation is
that bragging to another man
about his behavior with women reinforced his identity as a
heterosexual man.
In some cases, people deliberately distance themselves from
homosexuality to cement
their heterosexual status.120 Perhaps you’ve used the phrase
“no homo” or heard someone
else say it. One use of this expression is as a follow -up to a
compliment that one man gives to
another. After saying something nice about what a friend is
wearing, a man might
immediately say “no homo” to make it clear that he has no
homosexual feelings. The phrase
serves the dual purpose of projecting heterosexuality while
designating homosexuality as a
second-class status. It’s an everyday example of doing
sexuality.
Olivia Chow, a former Toronto mayoral candidate, at a
Pride Parade. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olivia_Chow_with_Pr
ide_Colours.jpg#/media/File:Olivia_Chow_with_Pride_Colours.
jpg
Page 34
Intersectional sexualities
Sara “Saartjie” Baartman was one of the most famous women
of the 1800s. A member
of the Khoikhoi (an indigenous group from southwestern
Africa), and sold into slavery by
Europeans as a teenager, Baartman was taken to Europe from
her home in Capetown, South
Africa, to be part of the “human freak show circuit” in England.
Her body was displayed
mainly for White Europeans of the time, who saw her as exotic
and inferior.121 Half-naked and
displayed in a cage that was only five feet tall, Baartman was
subjected to “the gaze and
prodding of strangers” and was used by her captors and the
public to hold up stereotypes of
the inferiority and hypersexuality (extreme in sexual appearance
or desire) of Africans.122 She

was labeled as hypersexual and “exotic” and objectified to such
a degree that her genitalia
and buttocks were preserved and kept on display in Paris after
she died in 1816. They
remained on display for more than 150 years; her body was only
returned to South Africa for a
proper burial in 2002. Baartman may be gone, but the lore
surrounding her life became a
leading stereotype of Black female sexuality and an enduring
example of colonialism, in
which one country politically and economically controls the
people and resources of another
geographic area.
Notions of sexuality rooted in culture have political
consequences that continue for
generations. One example is the way that Black sexualities,
often like the kind used to exploit
Sara Baartman, have been used to justify racism. The Jezebel
caricature portrayed Black
women as highly sexual and “lusty.”123 Similarly, the Brute
caricature portrayed Black men as
savage sexual predators.124 These sexualized caricatures were
used to justify slavery and later

the Jim Crow system of discrimination, which legally enforced
segregation between Blacks
and Whites in the southern U.S. Since Black women were
convincingly portrayed as over-
sexualized and tempting, their continued rape by slave owners
could be justified.125 Once
Black men were convincingly portrayed as dangerous predators,
then lynching or murdering
Black men for even looking at a White
woman could be justified.126 Scholars like
bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins stress
that these extremely sexualized images
still exist, though in softer or subtler forms.
Modern images, instead of being
mobilized to justify colonialism, are used
to justify capitalism: we use racialized
bodies to sell stuff. 127
We see racialized sexual
stereotypes of all sorts. Take this beer ad,
for example, which plays on the idea of

Latinas as “hot.” A recent study shows
(Source)
http://pinkdollads.blogspot.com/
Page 35
that the predominant image of Latinas in American media is
highly sexualized, or “hot,”128
while Latino men are overwhelmingly portrayed as dominant
and “macho.”129 Since Latinos
are the most underrepresented group in American film, even a
single portrayal can make a
big impact.130
Or take the example below of a commercial for Mountain Dew.
In the commercial, a
goat assaults a waitress when they run out of Mountain Dew.
Later, the White waitress is asked
to pick her assailant in a police lineup. All of the suspects are
Black men.
(Source)

These images and stereotypes help rationalize and reproduce
social inequalities. Think
about what stereotypes do: they oversimplify things. They
reduce the world’s complexity and
make social relations more straightforward. The trouble is,
stereotypes are distorted, one-sided,
and exaggerated. The more we’re surrounded by these distorted
images, the more they
become part of our everyday understanding. And the more
they’re part of our landscape, the
more likely we are to believe them. So breaking through
harmful social stereotypes is an
important part of creating a fairer world for everyone.
The social control of sexuality
Puberty, the process of becoming a sexually mature individual,
is a biological event.
Once we go through it, we’re theoretically capable of sexual
reproduction (though
sometimes not entirely). But in the U.S., it’s now typical for
people to wait to have children until
years after they are biologically able to do so. Among U.S.
women who have ever had a child,
their average age at first childbirth is 23; among men who ever

have children, it’s almost 26.131
And that’s only the average. We see wide variation by race,
class, education level, and
region. The average age has been increasing over time, as well.
http://yourblackworld.net/2013/04/29/ mountain-dew-releases-
arguably-the-most-racist-commercial-in-history/
Page 36
For good or ill, a number of demographic, economic, and
cultural factors help
determine when our potential fertility is expressed. In
sociological terms, we say that social and
cultural institutions exert social control over sexuality. Social
control refers to the way we
enforce normative behaviors through social interaction, values
and worldviews, and laws.
In the case of sexuality, institutional social control exerts itself
in multiple areas of life,
many of which we don’t even realize. Consider the example of
erectile dysfunction (ED), a
condition in which men have trouble achieving or maintaining a
penile erection. Sounds

pretty medical, doesn’t it? But scholars like Leonore Tiefer
argue that our sexuality has been
medicalized, a process in which society understands or defines a
problem in medical terms.
This usually means that we use medical language to describe it
and rely on medicine to treat
it.132 Alcoholism, pregnancy, attention-deficit disorder, and
even baldness were all initially
understood as social problems, but became understood as
medical disorders.
Figure 4: Average Age of First-Time Moms by Race
Tiefer argues that the medicalization of ED was helpful for
some men because it led to
the development and marketing of drugs that can help men get
and keep a reliable erection.
But medicalization also creates problems. The medicalization of
erections (or lack of them)
reinforces the idea that there is an ideal erection that all men
should have. Additionally, all the
(Source: CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System)
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db232.htm

Page 37
attention given to ED continues to stress phallocentrism, or a
worldview that centers the
phallus (the symbolic ideal of the penis) in sexual acts and
society more broadly. The
medicalization of ED draws our attention toward it, so much so
that penile-vaginal intercourse
is understood as the only sex act worth our attention.133
Medicalization provide us with a
framework of medical intervention and a framework of
understanding: What’s important to
us? What’s normal or abnormal? Who or what is responsible?
What’s the best way to solve it?
These collective understandings are a form of social control:
they enforce certain sexual
behaviors and sexuality-related worldviews.
Let’s take another example: sex education. An article about
individuals’ memories of
sex ed contains the following anecdote:
…I do not remember learning much about actual “safe sex.” I do

remember,
however… my teacher passing a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
around class, telling us to
“do whatever we wanted to it.” After people had licked it,
thrown it on the ground,
stuck their pencil into it, etc., she claimed that “having sex with
more than one person is
exactly the same. No one wants to eat this peanut butter cup, so
why would someone
want to have sex with you if you have been ‘passed
around.’”134
This lesson, and variations of it, are taught in schools across the
United States. It raises a
question: what is the purpose of sex education? And what does
it have to do with the social
control of sexuality?
In abstinence-only sex education,
students are taught that abstinence is expected
of them. It has an eight-point legal definition
outlined in Section 510(b) of Title V of the Social
Security Act, but the main characteristic is that
abstinence-only education “has as its exclusive

purpose teaching the social, psychological, and
health gains to be realized by abstaining from
sexual activity.”135 Note the word “exclusive”;
these programs are forbidden from including
certain information. For example, they are
generally not allowed to provide students with
information about contraception (like condoms),
other than to note failure rates.136
Comprehensive sex education generally “stresses the importance
of waiting to have
sex” while offering information about how contraception works,
so students can avoid
unwanted pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections
(STIs).137 Information about STIs is
critical; in 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
reported that rates of
gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis had increased for five
straight years, hitting an all-time high
(Source)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/saulalbert/34220886813/in/photo
list-U8YZpT-mkx3uD-6ZyoBY-VXme8y-ThKCrH-roCJtM-

9onhGd-8q9GgW-3E47nj-dswhG8-poMKFr-qQ7Rdp-e9qNDS-
hE5oza-7pV7aR-8q9Gs7-dzjfRC-8q6x46-obDnua-hpbsxC-
RaRDER-RaRDWn-9H7XVf-QWFqDA-2td7aP-5PSimw-
pGqUez-8cXFvp-dUfHor-dSQ127-itpcV5-6CpYvH-aFhZWz-
UBG953-bHqqg8-CUGnG-YgK9VY-in3UYz-QA4Pmn-
dHmqM5-4nf9ii-6CPa5g-dAok4z-711sXb-ewYhey-bkSVEo-
7fDoxg-zwaoh-eb9QKx-BxZh34
Page 38
in 2018.138 Comprehensive sex ed programs typically include a
wider variety of information for
students and a range of ethical perspectives on sexuality.
In the case of abstinence-only education, we can see how social
control works. An
institution (the school system) attempts to socialize a
population (kids and teens) to adopt
specific behaviors. Comprehensive sex education may not stress
behavioral changes up front,
but it too attempts to enforce certain behaviors, like using
condoms. As Émile Durkheim taught
us, this type of social control exists in every society (though in
different forms) as a way for
societies to regulate themselves.139 But there are struggles and
disagreements over what or

who needs controlling. Sexuality may be inextricably linked to
our bodies, but cultural factors
have a lot to do with the ways in which we express that
sexuality.
As we conclude this chapter, our hope is that you’ve begun to
think about the ways in
which gender and sexuality are not simply unchanging facts of
biology, but social relations
that we actively construct, experience, and express. Sociologist
Sam Richards once said, “My
students often ask me, ‘What is sociology?’ And I tell them,
‘It's the study of the ways in which
human beings are shaped by things that they don't see’.”140
While we all experience gender
and sexuality, we can’t fully understand them unless we
examine intersections between the
smallest and largest aspects of social life. From our individual
personal histories to historical
power relations, from everyday interactions to large-scale
institutions, our job is to study how a
wide range of social forces shape us. As you continue to think
about the sociology of gender
and sexuality, we hope you will keep digging to discover all
those factors we don’t see.

REVIEW SHEET: SEXUALITIES
CLICK THE LINK FOR:
AUDIO KEY POINTS
sexuality/
sexuality/
Page 39
REFERENCES
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189-no-11-u-s/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/7873921/
Caster-Semenya-anatomy-of-her-case.html

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